


counterpoise

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Family Secrets, Female Relationships, Gen, Guilt, Luke and Leia Grow Up Together, Mother-Daughter Relationship, POV Female Character, Padmé Amidala Lives, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Protectiveness, Slice of Life, Time Skips, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-02 21:03:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6582364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guilt stabs into Padmé’s chest, a rhythmic pain that keeps time with her pulse. Leia knows her father was a Jedi, that he loved her—would have loved her—and that he died fighting the Emperor before there was ever really such a thing as the Rebellion. It’s the truth. From a certain point of view. But that doesn’t stop doubt from coursing, ragged, through her veins.</p><p>[written for the <a href="https://maythe4thbewithyou.dreamwidth.org/">may the 4th be with you 2016</a> exchange]</p>
            </blockquote>





	counterpoise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [syrupwit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/syrupwit/gifts).



I.

Obi-Wan escorts Amidala’s body back to Naboo. In disguise, of course—hair darkened and cut, beard reduced to a roguish stubble, none of his usual variety of staid reserve detectable in the deep mourning purples of his shirt, the black of his boots. He is handsome in an anonymous way, almost young in appearance, nobody anyone would think one way or the other about. No reputation precedes nor follows him. He has no title, nickname, nor calling. General, Negotiator, master Jedi. None of these matter any longer and no lightsaber hangs from his belt. He is no one at all and has just one responsibility left.

He escorts the body back to Naboo, and with that one responsibility completed, she becomes no one, too.

_Before_

“You want me to _what_?” he asks, the polished lilt of his voice edging into the higher registers of its range. So like the many times when Ana—when _he’d_ suggested some foolish idea and Obi-Wan had balked at it, tone pitching for the heavens. His eyes follow her around the room as she paces, still unsteady from childbirth, from her last encounter with the man her husband has become, from what has happened to the Republic. It’s too hard to laugh now at his surprise—nothing seems funny anymore—but the barest hint of humor skims across her conscious mind, heedless of that fact. Obi-Wan sounds ridiculous when he’s like this. Always has.

She hopes he always will.

It feels like certainty in a galaxy upturned by treachery.

“You look terrible,” she says, light, counterbalancing the darkness in whatever way she can. “The lake country might do you some good.” She turns away at the sound of her daughter burbling. Now there is a true counterbalance. Both Leia and Luke. It’s difficult to see anything wrong in the galaxy when she looks at them, tiny and perfect and bright with the Force—according to Obi-Wan. In that realm, Padmé remains clueless. She must trust Obi-Wan’s word.

They could have become Jedi in a different age. And in such a hypothetical circumstance, she might have been proud of that. In this one, knowing what she knows, she’s not so sure.

She should perhaps feel bad for such an uncharitable thought.

Instead, she does not correct her own meanness, not even to herself. Everything shapes itself around her children now. And she does not want them to be like those shining heroes of old. There will be no Jedi training. For either of them. No talk of ancient religions, nor the honorable and misguided order of warriors, scientists, and philosophers bred from them. They will not know the legacy left to them by their father. They will not grow up with a complete understanding of their origins. _They will not know more than half of where they come from,_ she thinks, icy dread rolling down her spine about the many years she will soon endure as a miser with the truth.

“If he knows I’m alive…” she insists. No need to explain who _he_ is. “If he knows Luke and Leia survived… He would destroy everything to get to them.”

“So you fake your death,” Obi-Wan replies. His gaze flicks to the crib where Luke and Leia lay together. Their feet kick at the air and a hologram of Alderaanian doves twinkles above their heads, the light from it sparking against the ceiling. It was a generous gift from Bail. And lovely to look at. Padmé spends hours at night watching its shining reflections play across her babies’ faces while they sleep. Obi-Wan clears his throat, prim, draws her attention back to him. He adds, disapproving, “And send me on a vacation.”

“Only for a little while.”

“What if he realizes?” Obi-Wan’s hand twirls in the air. It’s good, Padmé thinks, that he’s thinking in terms of he’s and him’s, too. Or… not good exactly. But the loneliness that sucks away at the best parts of her is assuaged to hear she’s not the only one doing it. “Surely I’ll draw attention to your ruse by being there.”

“On the contrary,” she says, finding it in herself to smile. Only Obi-Wan would be unable to see past where his duties lie. Perhaps that has always been his problem. “Were I truly dead, who else would take me home but you?”

Obi-Wan concedes with a tilt of his head. “But what if something happens here while I’m gone?”

“Then Bail’s security forces will have to do, won’t they?” Another generous gift. Bail had cordoned off a huge section of his personal ship for her comfort and privacy, put his best people in charge of protecting her—people she knows from the… clandestine meetings she, Bail, and Mon Mothma have begun conducting. Even Master Yoda had not received such accommodations before he’d gone to Dagobah. And exile. Or retreat. She has not yet settled on an explanation suitable to her understanding of him.

Then again, he’s a Jedi. Maybe he’d declined it.

“I have—”

“A bad feeling about this, I know.” She finally allows herself to go to the crib, picks up Leia first, then Luke. Carries them back. Hands her little boy over. _That_ never fails to find the glimmer of softness that still remains with her oldest, truest friend. “Have you ever had a good feeling about anything?”

“No,” he says, eyebrow kicking up. But there’s a hint of his old self in the shimmering blue of his eyes. He’s not wholly gone and neither will she be, she thinks, once she finds her equilibrium again, her purpose. “I’m not sure I’d recognize it even if I did.”

“Then spend a few days with my family. They’ll show you what it feels like,” she says, regret threatening to overwhelm her even as she tries to tease Obi-Wan. She would damn _him_ if she could for taking them from her, for taking them from her children. But it is a sacrifice she must make for the sake of them all. “Just… tell them I love them. Make sure they’re safe.

We’ll leave for Alderaan as soon as you return.”

II.

For having such short legs, Leia runs like a fire blazes beneath her feet. Padmé, by some accounts, had been the same. At least according to her father. Before she’d been queen, he’d often accused her of sorcery. No child should so easily elude an adult’s grasps, he’d said. And yet. _Payback_. The voice her mind conjures sounds suspiciously like Ruwee Naberrie’s, warm and dry and gravelled over with age. _This is just payback, darling_.

She wonders if that would explain it. And secretly hopes that spitfire vivacity, already evident at four years old, comes from her. But _he’d_ been headstrong, too. Just as full of life as she. Leia has already inherited his Force sensitivity. Padmé would like to think she’s contributed more than the curly dark hair haloing her daughter’s head. If she could choose to share a trait with Leia, it might well be this one.

Otherwise, for all Padmé knows, Leia took it from the best parts of her father.

And Padmé doesn’t know how that makes her feel. Sad, maybe. Or troubled and wishing she wasn’t.

Leia already is so like him that sometimes Obi— _Ben_ just stares at her, rapturous or concerned or both. Their original plan—to protect them from even a whisper of Jedi training—had failed almost immediately, so quickly that Padmé suspects Ben had known this would happen and had bided his time, this outcome hanging in the back of his mind all the while. It had failed, in fact, the first time Luke shattered a vase with the power of his mind, scaring himself, Leia, and Padmé all at once. In the midst of a two-year old’s tantrum, the glass had ruptured, splintered into thousands of crystalline pieces that launched themselves every which way, a few shards grazing Luke’s cheek. Now, some two years later, both of her children complete the same exercises every child in the Jedi Temple’s crèche would have also done not so long ago.

“Come here, you,” Padmé says, finally catching Leia around the waist and pulling her back against her chest. Leia squeals, delighted, and squirms. “Momma, no,” she says, her vowels shrill through her high-pitched giggles. She twists her head back and forth, hair flying every which way. The scent of _thissalily_ tickles at her nostrils, candy-sweet, the lingering odor of the hair wash Leia loves. A baby-fine curl finds its way into Padmé’s mouth.

As Padmé picks Leia up, her heels knock against Padmé’s thighs and she squeals anew, threatening to burst Padmé’s eardrums. “I should tell Ben to stop showing you tricks.” She shifts Leia until Leia is facing her, legs wrapping around Padmé’s waist without thought. Her arms make a valiant effort at cutting off Padmé’s air supply. “You’re always so excitable when he does. Did you have a good time?”

“He floated Luke’s ball,” she replies, flipping to a matter-of-fact delivery in an instant. “He says I can float Luke’s ball, too.”

“You will, darling.”

Leia’s lower lip trembles and Padmé can’t tell what she’s done to cause the sudden shift in Leia’s demeanor. Her eyes widen, glossy with tears that don’t fall. She so rarely cries anymore. Padmé can’t decide whether she’s grateful for, or afraid of, that fact. “I tried,” she says, mournful. “It wouldn’t go.”

“It just takes practice,” Padmé says, swaying, rocking her back and forth. Tapping her on the nose, she adds, “And patience.”

“Luke made it move,” Leia says, utterly ignoring Padmé’s every word. She buries her face in Padmé’s neck, rubs her cheek against Padmé’s shoulder. She shudders and settles with a huff of finality. “I wanna make the ball float.”

“You will.” Padmé’s palm caresses the delicate jut of Leia’s shoulder. She wills Leia to be soothed by it.

As though summoned, Luke trudges in, hand gripped in—”Bail, what a surprise,” she says, stepping forward, blood pounding in her ears, rapid. Leia tenses against her, clings more tightly. She glances at Ben, who trails after them, a smile on his face. Her heart unclenches and she forces herself to take a breath. It can’t be that bad if Ben is smiling—

“Luke, what have I told you about dragging Senator Organa around by the—”

“It’s quite all right,” Bail answers, a share of longing in his voice that makes her heart twist anew. If anyone deserves to be a father, it’s him. “I believe I insisted on the escort.”

Ben scratches at his chin and thins his lips, searching the ceiling for a distraction. “Young Luke takes his duties quite seriously it would seem.”

“I didn’t want to lose him,” Luke explains, shrugging. As he pulls his hand free, his eyebrows furrow with a child’s deep suspicion. He stomps toward Padmé and stretches his arms up, his blondish hair a tangle across his forehead. When she meets Ben’s eyes, his lower lip twitches. He might once have been able to disguise it beneath his facial hair. Now, smooth-cheeked, there’s nothing to hide it with. She narrows her eyes at him and shakes her head, her lips pursing.

“No,” Leia says, leaning over to see what Luke’s doing. She kicks her foot out, but he dodges out of the way. “You stayed with Ben. I get momma now.”

Padmé crouches, keeping careful hold on Leia, and lets Luke latch onto her side. They’re getting too big to hold both at once, but if the years have taught her anything, it’s how to compromise. She remains there despite her thighs burning after only a few moments. She hasn’t had the time to concern herself with physical training in a long time. Not beyond that which is had while chasing after two energetic young creatures until they’ve exerted themselves entirely. “What can I do for you, Bail?” she asks, well aware of just how ridiculous she must look, kneeling on the floor between her children. Or how ridiculous she would look to anyone _except_ Bail.

“Breha was hoping to have you over for dinner. You and the children, of course,” Bail answers, warm, though she detects an undertone of something else. His invitation includes Ben through a quick glance in his direction. “Tonight, if I might be so bold as to suggest it.”

The knowing tilt of his head seals her understanding.

It’s never just dinner, not with the Emperor—not with _him_ —out there. It’s planning under the guise of politesse. The meal will be lovely, the conversation charming until the food is eaten, the leftovers carried back to the kitchens. The children will enjoy themselves, prodded and pampered and loved by the Organas and their retinue of bodyguards and staff all the while. There will be laughter and the veneer of joy—a tiny, true glimmer of it if they’re lucky.

It will, if nothing else, make for a nice change from her usual quiet dinner at home, Ben her only adult company. Ben would no doubt agree if she asked him.

But then the real work will begin. Time-sensitive work if Bail’s insistence is anything to go by. Perhaps this time, Padmé can be of genuine assistance. Were she still Amidala, she wouldn’t have to wonder. Contacts, favors, friendships—they might all be used to further the Alliance’s causes. In hiding, nameless, she can only advise.

Another sacrifice she’s had to make.

Still, gratefulness courses through her veins at Bail’s insistence at always including her, useful or not. There will likely come a day when he can no longer do that, when she has drifted too far from influence, from power, from the center of things, to be helpful. “I’d be delighted, Bail.”

He nods, a touch sardonic in the act. “I thought you might be.”

III.

She cannot be the leader she once was, cannot own her titles and accomplishments, cannot even speak her own name. Her ideas cannot belong to her. And she cannot take any of the risks herself—not by publicly denouncing the Emperor’s policies, nor even doing any of the fighting though her fingers itch for a blaster, her frustration and fear high and tight in her chest.

But she can still watch the legislative sessions.

He hasn’t taken that from her.

_Concurrent_

“Mom,” Leia says, sitting next to Padmé on the couch, her legs tucked beneath her. Elbows resting on her knees, she leans forward, transfixed by the holofeed. She’s beautiful and gangly, all arms and legs and long, brown hair. If you look at her at just the right time, you might catch her in the midst of a growth spurt. “What happens if the Emperor blocks aid to Lothal?”

“He won’t, darling,” she answers, brushing a stray curl from Leia’s temple. It springs back into place and Leia brushes Padmé’s hand away, too dedicated to the feed to endure the slightest disruption. Though she smiles at her daughter’s desire to remain undistracted, her words are serious, sedate. It is a tone no one, not even Leia, can ignore. “Their resources are too good to pass up.” Disgust worms its way into her tone despite her attempt to remain neutral. “He wants them to know how few systems care about Lothal’s people—and how generous he can be in the face of that opposition.”

Leia’s nose wrinkles. “If he was generous, he would do just do it. He wouldn’t be a stanging nerfherder about it.”

Padmé’s eyebrow arches. “Is that so?” she asks, lifting her hand to her mouth. She ought to berate Leia for her use of such colorful language, but she won’t lie and say the Emperor’s not exactly that. Still, Leia, very much in tune with social cues, blushes and turns her head. Someone ought to disapprove even though Padmé can’t quite bring herself to do it. In some corners of the Empire, talk like that might end with a charge of sedition. “Shouldn’t you be practicing with Ben and Luke?”

Leia frowns, her face scrunched, scandalized. “This is more important.”

Padmé snakes her arm around Leia’s shoulders and pulls Leia flush against her. She kisses the side of her head, inhales the delicate scent of nightblooms in her hair. Lets herself revel in the thought that Leia, at ten, finds this the best way she could spend her time. “Just don’t let anyone outside of this apartment hear you say that about the Emperor, okay?”

“I know,” she replies, the same as all children who don’t take their parents nearly as seriously as they ought to. Regardless, Padmé doesn’t doubt Leia will do as she asks. She’s a good kid. Smart. She knows what it would mean to insult the Emperor. And she already knows the value of propriety.

In another lifetime, she might have been a queen with skills like that.

“Maybe don’t let Ben hear you either,” Padmé adds, one corner of her mouth jerking upward. “We’d never hear the end of it.”

Leia lifts her head, stares up, mouth hanging open until she regains her senses. “But he said it first,” she replies. In retrospect, perhaps, Padmé shouldn’t be surprised. Ben has relaxed into civilian life more easily than Padmé might have expected; he’s grown a few rough edges. It figures a few local phrases might find their way into his mouth. “Mom, he’s said _worse_.”

IV.

“Attaché Leia Neber,” Padmé says. Even after all this time, the assumed name sounds foreign to her ears and trips, foreign, off the tongue. A lie that reaches into Padmé’s heart and twists every single time she has to tell it. She tugs at the stiff, uncooperative fabric of Leia’s robes until it lays the way she wants it to. Jealousy stings at her, a throbbing discomfort that trickles and pools in her stomach. The feeling is unworthy of her and she refuses to give into it. “I like the sound of that.”

Leia looks up at her. She’s nearly as tall as Padmé now, though it seems likely she’s grown about as much as she’s going to. Padmé had finished growing at about sixteen and it pleases Padmé that she might share this, too, with Leia. Her hair coils elegantly at the base of her neck, sheened with a healthy gloss. She seems older than her smooth, clear skin would suggest, her bearing mature. Padmé had had to learn that early as well. Even her posture is crisp and has remained so the entire time they’ve stood on the transport pad. Bail’s corvette hovers behind them, looms, pale grey and striped with red, waiting to take Padmé’s daughter from her. “It’s just for a year,” Leia insists, an uncertain break hitching her last word.

“A lot can happen in a year on Coruscant,” Padmé replies. She fusses one last time with Leia’s clothing before dusting her hands together. With nothing else to distract her, she can’t meet Leia’s eyes. Her own prickle in response to the thick fog of emotion swirling beneath her breastbone. Her fear and love have twined themselves together so closely that she can’t tell one from the other. It’s difficult enough to keep her voice even while worry twists in her gut. If she had to see what Leia is feeling, too, it would become impossible. “Be careful.”

It’s not like with Luke, who spends so much of his time training. Training for what, Padmé never asks. Training that, in hindsight, Padmé is glad that Leia hasn’t devoted herself to. It’s not that she begrudges Luke his devotion. She’s seen Jedi do a lot of good in the galaxy. But for all their skills with the Force, the Jedi are powerless, their order extinct. Luke can carry on that legacy, but the galaxy needs diplomats who are sympathetic to the nascent Rebellion, senators who are brave, businesspeople who hate what the Republic has become as much as the Rebellion does. Leia can reach those people in a way Luke cannot.

“I’m so proud of you, darling,” Padmé says. She wishes she could explain how to handle overstuffed senators, offer advice on how to spot the people who agree with you and the people who _agree_ with you. She wishes she could share her own experiences, tell the whole truth of who she is and what she’s done. Mon Mothma has no doubt filled in the gaps Padmé should have filled herself, training Leia in the art of diplomacy while Padmé, as always, does what she can. _Which is nothing_ , her mind doesn’t whisper at her.

“I know,” Leia replies, collected, prideful. A tiny, pompous smirk plays across her lips, but her eyes roll in jest. The performed arrogance breaks the melancholy of the moment. Both Padmé and Leia laugh, distracted for a time from Leia’s imminent departure. Leia searches the platform, her gaze falling on the overlarge doorway along the far wall. Her attention grows distance, her voice smoothing out, as though with someone far away. “So is my brother going to see me off, too, or what?”

No doubt she already knows the answer.

“I’m here!” he says, sprinting past Padmé and reaching Leia’s side with a burst of not-quite-preternatural speed. Huffing, he laughs and grabs her in a vigorous embrace. Twisting her around, he ruins all the hard work Padmé had put into making Leia presentable. By the time he frees her from his grip, her robes have their old wrinkles back—and a few new ones.

Ben steps up behind her, boots silent against the metallic floor. “They grow so quickly,” he says. A joke, surely, too trite a statement coming from him. Then again, from the softness of and surprise in his tone, perhaps he does feel that way. And perhaps he finds something to wonder at in his reaction, too. His eyes cut to her own, knowing. “She’ll do well in the capital.”

“Fourteen isn’t so grown,” Padmé answers, thinking of her own arrested childhood. It’s too young. _Leia_ is too young. “But yes, she will do well.”

She just hopes Leia doesn’t do _too_ well.

V.

“So,” Padmé says, stepping forward to embrace Leia. “I hear you made quite the splash on your last assignment.”

Leia smiles the smile of the well-pleased, a _katha_ got the _fleethmilk_ expression on her face. Padmé ought to chide her for that pride, but she cannot bring herself to do it. Her heart wouldn’t be in it. “It worked,” Leia answers. “And the rebels got the ships. I’d say it was a job well done all the way around.”

“It was.” Padmé loops her arm around Leia’s, guides her into the apartment as though Leia would have forgotten the way. “Bail is pleased by all accounts.”

“I’m glad.” Scanning the room, she lingers on the things that are different—the furniture’s arrangement, the vase of flowers bunched on the low table in the center, the delicate, eggshell blue walls. And the things that are the same—the pristine white carpet, the old holoprojector, dented and scratched, functional only due to Padmé’s stubborness. Since Leia’s been gone, she has changed much more about the place than she’s kept the same. Maybe she has altered too much. Leia’s eyebrow lifts in disconcerted challenge. “Has Senator Organa returned from Coruscant?”

“No,” Padmé replies, pursing her lips. Her worry calcifies into a weighty stone in her gut. The longer her friends and family are away, the heavier it grows. Sometimes, she can hardly move out from beneath it. She used to _work_ to keep the fear at bay. Now she can do little but watch from the sidelines, too long out of the game. The Rebellion grows every day, as does the Empire’s scrutiny of sympathizers, while Padmé’s role in it shrinks because of that scrutiny. _I will do what I must to keep my children safe,_ she reminds herself. _It is not weakness that keeps me from taking a greater part_. “Another delay in the senate. He was disappointed to know he’ll miss you. But he sends his regards.”

“That’s too bad. I had hoped to speak with him in person.” Her eyes flick over Padmé’s face, seeing what, Padmé can’t even begin to say. From the lines of disapproval etched deep around Leia’s mouth, it must not be good. “How are you, mother?”

“I’m well. Alderaan is beautiful as always. The weather has been lovely.” Alderaan is cool and crisp and clean, elegant in ways Coruscant had never been. Nor the Outer Rim. Nor any of the other places she might serve the Rebellion from. Only Naboo has ever come close and it’s toward Naboo that her thoughts bend. “I miss home.”

Leia’s eyebrows furrow with limited understanding, clearing only after a moment of thought that leads her, presumably, to the correct conclusion. Alderaan has always been Leia’s home; she has no personal connection to Naboo. But Naboo had belonged to Padmé once, protected by her will and power and care.

Naboo is everything to her. But she has to pretend it is just the place where she grew up, shielding Leia from as much of the truth as she can. Because Naboo has also birthed the Republic’s downfall. And it formed the backdrop to the start of her own.

“Perhaps…” Leia pauses and gestures toward the couch, waits until Padmé sits before sitting herself, ginger, on the edge of the cushion. Her hands settle on the thighs. As she turns, her fingertips brush Padmé’s knees. “Perhaps it’s time to visit? I could accompany you—I’m sure Luke and Ben would…”

“No, darling,” Padmé answers. “There are some things a person cannot do no matter how much they would like to.” She smiles, so much warmth filling her at the offer. “But thank you.”

“But—”

“ _No_.”

Leia rarely gives up on things outright, but Padmé had been stubborn long before Leia was ever born. And Leia knows it, despite also considering herself an authority on every subject at age sixteen-and-a-half. She nods and brushes back the strands of hair that have fallen from the winding braids looped around the crown of her head. “Things are going to change,” she does say. “Soon. You’ll see. And then you’ll be able to do anything you’d like.”

_Later_

“Don’t you see she’s lonely?” Leia says, her tone weaving and dodging into the hallway, perfectly audible only once Padmé passes, her feet slippered and quiet on the hardwood. She ought to walk away, push Leia’s words from her mind. Whatever she’s arguing about—and with whom, though Padmé can guess on both counts—is none of her business. “What do you and Ben _do_ all day?”

It’s funny what her children choose not to perceive. They’re so strong in the Force, but they don’t sense Padmé’s presence when she’s mere feet from them. Talking about her.

“We train,” Luke answers, quieter, more plaintive. The voice she’d expected. “It’s not like we don’t see her.”

“I think that’s exactly what it’s like.” Leia’s feet stomp, muffled, across the plush carpet of her room. The pacing stops after a moment, then resumes with a sweeping shush of fabric. A wisp of white fabric flashes near the bottom of the door, slightly ajar. A small doodad, Luke’s most likely, blocks the door from sliding shut all the way.

“We see her every day,” Luke answers, defiant. “You’re the one who traipses across the Empire on Senator Organa’s order.”

“I do it because I have to.”

“And _I train_ because _I_ have to.”

“Okay,” she says, her disappointment clear, her voice raw with the frustration of a person who knows they’re never going to understand their opponent’s point and would rather avoid the roundabout argument that will result. “Fine. You have to train. Just… try to spend some time with her, would you? In between all that training? If it’s not too much trouble.”

Holding her breath, Padmé creeps past the door. They continue to argue, their voices carrying, blurred with distance until Padmé cannot hear them at all. They never once stop in that time.

She hadn’t thought herself lonely before.

Now she wonders.

VI.

“You’re going to be careful, aren’t you, darling?” Padmé asks, scanning her daughter’s face for deception. She sees nothing but exuberance and expectation and though Bail hasn’t told her the goal, she can tell it’s a big one. They’ve got something in mind. Something so important, even Padmé can’t know the details.

Padmé’s heart clamors for her to take part. Though she’s grown older, has… acknowledged her role now, she wants nothing more than to climb right into the middle of it and _help_. Even though both Luke and Leia have cultivated their own skills, can protect themselves.

“I will,” Leia answers, firm, resolute, so sure it almost scares Padmé.

“You’ll take care of Luke?” she asks, which is silly. They’re the same age, grown mature in complimentary ways. And yet, Padmé still thinks of Leia as the older one, the one who has to look out for her sibling. But he’s fully trained, capable. If anyone needs a bodyguard, it’s Leia, who jumps into every situation with both feet, her certainty and ability with words her first line of defense. She’s the one who has devoted her life to walking that line between loyal subject of the Empire and rebellious dissident. And though she has some skill with a blaster, she’s not like Luke, who could probably take on a whole squad of Stormtroopers and come out of it with hardly a scratch on him.

Something of the humor of that suggestion shows on Leia’s face as she smirks in response. “I will,” she says. “Luke will be fine. It’ll all be fine. You’ll see. We’ll be back in no time.

“I keep my promises.”

Nineteen years old and here she is, comforting her own mother.

_(Too) Much Later_

Her children return with a rascally, handsome smuggler in tow. The news that pieces of the Death Star are scattered across the stars above Yavin 4 trails them like a comet’s tail, an excited outburst of information that would overwhelm Padmé if she hadn’t had her own share of adventures. Leia speaks of desert planets—places far too familiar to Padmé, though Leia wouldn’t know that—and lush forests, narrow escapes from catinas and trash compactors. The Rebellion has won the day thanks in no small part to Leia and Luke… and one Han Solo.

“Have you ever attended a welcome home party on Alderaan, Mr. Solo?” she asks, not a little arch.

“I, uh… no. I don’t think I have,” he answers, both deliberate and charmingly awkward. His smile, though. It must’ve gotten him this far in life because she doesn’t see any other way he could have survived with his façade of cool unconcern intact. “Ma’am. And it’s Han. I’m not really the mister sort.”

“Han, then. I guess you soon will have.” Her gaze cuts to Leia, who seems maybe far more disinterested in him than she genuinely is. “I’m sure Leia wouldn’t mind making up guest quarters for you in the meantime.”

“Mother!” Leia says, striding forward to grab Padmé by her sleeve. Her eyes widen, a silent plea in them as she turns both of them away from their guest. She adds, a bare whisper, “He’s not _staying_. I’ve already arranged accommodations for him.”

When Padmé glances at him over Leia’s shoulder, Han shrugs at her. His eyelids flutter as he raises his eyebrows in response to Leia’s show of initiative. The smile on his lips, different than the first, suggests a tinge more fondness than Leia’s not exactly _kind_ behavior should explain.

Perhaps Leia is making the right choice here. Decisions made in the heat of battle and aftermath of strife, of destruction, aren’t always the best. And Leia has proven herself far more practical than Padmé had been with her own love life. “Of course, darling.” She takes Leia’s hand in hers, squeezes it. “If that’s what you want.”

Leia relaxes, her body unwinding. “I…” She looks back at Han. “Maybe the guest quarters in the far wing?”

Padmé bites back a smile, unwilling to think wholly ill of the man who’d look at her daughter the way he does—who’d help them succeed in their mission. “Seems you’ve been relegated _and_ upgraded all at once, Han.”

“The _far_ wing,” Han replies. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time. I’m sure I’m honored.”

“Luke will show you,” Leia says.

“I will?” His nose wrinkles and his brow furrows as he exchanges a look with Leia. “Right, I will.”

“Don’t do me any favors, kid,” Han says, dry.

“It’s by far the prettiest spot in Alderaan’s capital, Han,” Padmé says, intent on smoothing things over. “I spend a lot of time in the library over there.”

Two of Han’s fingers brush his forehead in insincere acknowledgment. Whether out of propriety or respect, however, he keeps his mouth shut. Still, she can almost see what he’s not saying. _There’s a library? Just where I want to be._

Luke grabs Han by the sleeve and pulls him toward the hallway leading toward the rest of the apartment. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to Ben while we’re at it.”

“Who’s Ben?” Han asks, suspicious. By the time Luke answers, they’ve gone too far for Padmé to hear.

It’s just she and Leia now. “How long are you home for?”

“I don’t know,” Leia replies. “Until Senator Organa sends us out again, I suppose.”

“Us?”

Leia’s gaze cut toward the hallway down which Han and Luke disappeared. Sorrow laps at Leia’s edges, visible in her eyes, her regret washing and receding and washing up again. She remains firm in the face of it. “Luke said he was coming with me.”

 _Oh_. “Of course,” Padmé replies, less surprised that she might have expected. Despite Luke spending most of his time close to home, she supposes he had to want to expend his energies elsewhere, put all those skills to use, eventually. “Bail said you met Vader?” Anger threatens to consume her, anger she must push into a dark corner of her heart, locked away from view so it doesn’t swallow her whole. _There’s no way he doesn’t know now. He couldn’t be that close to his children and_ not _know._

Leia grimaces, fire sparking and consuming her melancholy. Unlike Padmé, she has not yet mastered concealing her rage. Perhaps soon, she will be able to teach Leia how. “Only for a brief moment. We escaped his clutches unharmed.”

Guilt stabs into Padmé’s chest, a rhythmic pain that keeps time with her pulse. Leia knows her father was a Jedi, that he loved her—would have loved her—and that he died fighting the Emperor before there was ever really such a thing as the Rebellion. It’s the truth. From a certain point of view. But that doesn’t stop doubt from coursing, ragged, through her veins.

It’s that doubt that makes the decision for her.

She can no longer ensure her children’s safety from Alderaan. Not now that Vader has seen them. She must take a risk, a real risk, the first risk she’s taken in a long time. She still may not be able to tell the truth, but she can, with a certainty, stop lying outright.

“There has been some talk of construction on a new base of operations for the Rebellion,” she says instead, a thought striking her. The rightness of it settles into her bones, charges them with electricity. It feels good to make this proclamation. She is more like herself than she’s been in years. “I will speak with Bail about it. I don’t intend to remain here while you are out there confronting Lord—” and here she sneers a little, unable to take his title seriously. Were he not this mangled, twisted version of himself, he would have found it ridiculous, too. She has known lords. He is not one; he is a puppet, a dog slavering on a leash, everything Anakin would have hated. “—Vader personally.”

Padmé’s conviction is the only thing capable of exceeding the look of surprised blankness on Leia’s face. Her mouth drops into an elongated ‘o’ and she steps forward, arm reaching for Padmé. To dissuade her or ask how she’d known about it, Padmé couldn’t guess, but it doesn’t matter.

The choice is made. She will no longer hide in the pretty, well-lit rooms of her apartment, safe behind the jagged peaks surrounding Alderaan’s capital. She will make the same stand her daughter does.

For however long it takes to right this wrong.

Whatever it takes.


End file.
